


From the Ruins

by Bagheera



Category: Smallville
Genre: AU, Bodyswap, Clark & Lex Reconciliation, Episode: Zod, F/M, Family, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-Slash, Superpowers, season 5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 14:18:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1094930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bagheera/pseuds/Bagheera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During "Zod", Clark and Lex accidentally switch bodies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	From the Ruins

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in 2007.

Needles. Stinging him in the back of his neck and on his scalp, and behind his ears and everywhere. Sunlight, like needles to the brain when he opened his eyes.

Clark blinked. It didn't go away. His head hurt, on the inside and the outside. His mouth tasted odd. His hand hurt like someone had dripped molten kryptonite on it.

He didn't want to move. Ever.

"I can crush rocks with my bare hands," Clark said.

He didn't, of course, say that. There was absolutely no reason to say that. Clark had been able to crush rocks as long as he could think and it wasn't all that exciting.

But he heard himself say that.

"And judging from the fact that you're groaning and squirming, whereas I feel better than I have in a long time, I think that it's a good bet to say that your powers have worn off," Clark heard himself go on in tone that sounded as if it couldn't decide whether to be gloating or bemused.

He cracked his eyes open again, or at least tried to. This wasn't good. The needles rustled against his scalp, and Clark realized two things at once: the needles were actually dry grass, and his head was bald.

"I'd say I win," Clark's voice went on, coming somewhere from above him.

Clark squinted at the looming shadow. Features took on shape, and he was looking up at himself, shredded blue shirt and dusty hair and all.

If Clark hadn't switched bodies before, he might have needed a little longer to get it, but this was really pretty obvious. If he was bald, and his body babbling about powers, then Clark was in Lex body, and the guy in Clark's body wasn't Zod.

So. Lex wasn't dead. And Zod wasn't around anymore. That was… good.

Clark had saved the world, and he hadn't killed Lex. It was almost more than Clark felt he deserved.

"Lex?" Clark croaked, and winced immediately when Lex's voice came out of his mouth. Lex's mouth, technically. He sounded like shit. He agreed with Lex's theory that the powers Fine had given Lex were gone.

"In your body," Lex confirmed. His tone was light, but with a dangerous, unbalanced edge. Manic, Clark believed it was also called.

Clark raised his hand, which hurt his muscles in places where they shouldn't hurt and looked at his palm. Only faint traces of the crystal crest were left. The last thing Clark remembered were his and Zod's hands both wrapped around the crest and then a flash of darkness, like the opposite of lightning.

"Zod?" he asked, just to be sure.

Lex raised his – Clark's – brows. "You're not making sense."

Right. Lex was the king of memory loss, so maybe he didn't remember the whole Zod mess. Which could be kind of good… only Lex had already found out about being able to crush stones and Lex wasn't stupid. "What do you remember?"

"Enough to know you wanted to kill me," Lex replied, and for the first time, Clark forgot Zod and focused entirely on now. Lex had powers and he hadn't. And Lex was really angry. "You held a dagger to my throat."

Clark gulped. He wished he could sit up and move away from Lex, but his muscles didn't go along with that. Being human sounded a lot better when you were an invulnerable alien.

"Do you remember any of what happened after that?" Clark soldiered on bravely. He'd defeated an evil megalomaniac alien monster, he could deal with Lex. Maybe.

Lex frowned, and Clark had the opportunity to see his own face in deep thought. It was weird. He looked like he had a stomach ache.

"Milton Fine was in the barn," Lex realized slowly, as if he had to drag the memories out by their hair. "You threw the dagger at him. Why?"

"He wanted me to kill you," Clark confessed. It made sense to him, he had thought he was being clever then, killing Fine instead of Lex. It turned out to be exactly the thing Fine wanted. But how could Clark have known? Jor-El gave him the dagger.

Lex ran a hand through Clark's hair, slowly, as if feeling for imperfections. His expression had grown distant.

"You're an alien."

Clark said nothing. There wasn't anything to say. He wasn't breathing either, because he had forgotten how. Lex had seen him using his powers and talking to Fine. Lex was inside Clark's body.

Every lie Clark had ever told him had been pointless. In the end, Lex had found out.

After a while, a tentative bird started to sing and rustle in the underbrush close to them. The sun beat down on Clark's face. It was getting hot in Zod's leather coat. His body still ached and his heart felt dry and dead, like the grass.

He didn't regret not killing Lex. He should, because a lot of people had died because Clark hesitated. But he couldn't regret sparing Lex.

He didn't regret lying to Lex, because it had been necessary.

He did regret not telling Lex the truth.

"No objections?" Lex asked. He sounded suspicious.

Clark shook his head, letting the grass needles sting him.

Lex held up his hands and studied them. Clark's hands. He must have seen and felt them a thousand times. Clark had to tell him to be careful with them. They could break more than stones.

God, this was Lex. Lex wasn't Zod, but he had killed. He had tortured Arthur and Victor. Maybe Lex wouldn't even care about breaking things. Maybe Clark hadn't saved the world.

Lex lowered his hands and turned his frown on Clark. His features smoothed and became completely blank, unreadable to Clark even though they were his own. "How did I end up in your body?"

Clark tried to come up with a better excuse than 'I don't know', but then he realized that there wasn't much point in lying about this. From what Clark had seen of Metropolis, Zod would be all over the news as soon as there were news again.

"It's a bit complicated," Clark said, wishing for something to drink and his own, pain-free body. Not necessarily in that order.

Lex didn't blink. It was more like absence of a blink, so noticeable that it was clear that a lesser man would have blinked. "Try me."

Clark did. He told Lex the story. It was surprisingly easy, when he just ignored who he was talking to. He'd become used to telling people, after Pete and Chloe. He started with explaining why Zod needed a body and from there got to a lot of other things, each a little easier to confess than the last.

"I need to see," Lex said, as soon as Clark was finished.

"See what?" Clark asked, but Lex was already was gone in a rustle of dry grass, leaving Clark alone on the empty field.

*

Lex stood on the roof of LuthorCorp tower. He had been standing there for some time, precariously close to the edge.

The wind that whipped his face smelled acrid, of half-extinguished fires and smoke. The sky was hidden behind an infernal curtain of dust. But Lex had his eyes closed.

He listened. From horizon to horizon, the world was filled with noise. It was closing in on him, like a mob, like a screaming murder of crows.

Waking in Clark's body had felt like waking from the dead. Like filling his lungs with breath for the very first time, like drinking pure sunlight. Exactly what Clark's body should feel like. And then, running to Metropolis – running had been terrifying in his own body when he had had powers, like driving without brakes, but in Clark's body, Lex was absolutely certain that he was the strongest, fastest, most alive being in the universe, and nothing could kill him.

But now those invulnerable legs were trembling, and bit by bit, giving in. Every wail, every sob, every breath the wounded city took forced him to his knees.

With a last, harsh breath Lex clamped his hands over his ears and curled in on himself. He wouldn't scream. He wouldn't.

*

It took Clark a while to get up and manage to stay up, but he was feeling better already. He shucked the stupid leather duster, felt in the grass for the crystal Raya had given him, and when he found it, slipped it into his pocket and started to walk into the direction of the farm.

It was the longest walk of his life.

Being in Lex's body was nothing like being human had been a year ago when Jor-El had taken his powers. Then, every step had felt like treading on air, like he had been dead wood and been turned into living flesh. Now, each step was a battle against gravity. He had a raging headache, too.

Finally, the farm came into view. The barn looked bad – how would they repair it without Clark's powers? At least his Mom would probably believe Clark when he told her it was him and not Zod in Lex's body, but what about everyone else? What about the people who had seen Zod? What if there were security cameras, or other evidence that indicated Lex?

And where the hell had Lex gone?

By the time Clark shuffled up to the kitchen door, he wanted nothing more than to explain fast so he could get something to eat and drink. He didn't bother knocking and just went in.

Lionel was pacing the living room, talking on his cell phone, and his Mom was tidying up the kitchen. She dropped the pan she had been holding with a gasp when she saw him and Lionel turned around, lowering the phone like someone would lower a gun.

Clark raised his hands, palms out. "Mom, it's me, Clark."

They both gaped at him for a moment, then she raised her hand to her mouth, stifling a strangled noise.

"Clark?" Lionel asked, and took a step closer. The open, trust-worthy expression Clark had come to expect on the older Luthor's face was gone, replaced by something sharper, harder, a look that Clark didn't like at all. It was the look Lionel had for Lex, sometimes, when Lex did something unexpected.

"What happened to you?" his Mom asked, pushing forward and looking him up and down as if she could somehow find him beneath Lex's skin.

"Zod is defeated," Clark explained. "I used a crystal I got in the Phantom Zone. It pulled Zod out of Lex's body… and then Lex and I sorta switched."

"Lex?" Lionel said, and his expression grew even sharper. It was greed, Clark realized. Clark gave him a frown. From the shock on Lionel's face when he told him he had to kill Lex, Clark would have expected a different reaction to the news that Lex was alive.

"He's in my body now." He saw his Mom's eyes widen in concern. "I don't know where he went."

Or what he was doing. What was the worst Lex could do in Clark's body? Kill, of course, but why should Lex kill randomly? Lex had no reason to walk around murdering and pillaging and robbing banks. That wasn't the kind of bad thing Lex did. Actually, the only thing Clark really worried about was that Lex wouldn't come back, that he would just take Clark's body and leave. Lex had said he wanted Clark's life…

"Does he remember - ?" Martha started.

"Not everything." Since no one offered him anything, Clark moved towards the sink to get a glass of water. His Mom noticed and ushered him to the table.

"Sit, sweetie. Are you feeling alright?"

"The powers Lex had are gone. I don't have any. But it's alright, I'm not hurt. Did you hear anything from Lana or Chloe?"

"Lana and Lois are at the hospital," Martha said and put a plate with some sandwiches next to the pitcher of lemonade on the table. "I haven't heard anything from Chloe, though."

Clark asked about Lois and the plane crash, but out of the corner of his eye he watched Lionel. He hadn't seen him interact with Lex for some time, and hadn't thought much about whether Lionel had reformed when it came to his son.

"The crystal you used," Lionel asked after some time, "I assume it was similar to the one that caused us to switch bodies two years ago?"

Caused them to switch body. More like used by Lionel to steal Clark's body, Clark thought angrily.

"I don't know," he said, unwilling to explain. He would go to the Fortress with the crystal once he had taken care of other stuff. Hopefully Jor-El would recognize him in Lex's body. Maybe he could do something to reverse the change. "It's gone."

"Hmm," Lionel said, rubbing his beard, and Clark had the feeling he didn't believe it.

"I'll go put on some different clothes," he excused himself after a moment and got up.

"I need to head to Metropolis, Martha," Lionel said immediately, following the move. "If you don't need my help anymore - ?"

"Oh, no, please go. I'll manage on my own. Just call us if there's any news about… if there's news," Clark heard her say as he quickly headed outside, for the barn. He had clothes up in his room, but in the barn was where he kept his important stuff.

The place was wrecked, but the stairs to the loft looked stable enough to take the risk and climb up. The shelves had fallen over, and the wooden floor was strewn with books and other stuff. At least the damage wasn't as bad as it had been in the second meteor shower. Clark made his way through the mess to look for his leaden box with kryptonite.

He nearly yelped when he noticed that he wasn't alone.

On the floor, with his back to the back of the couch, sat Lex. He looked as if he were trying to minimize the space Clark's body took up by having his arms wrapped around his knees and his head resting on them. Now he lifted his head, and, wow, he looked bad. Exhaustion didn't show much on Clark's face, but somehow Lex had managed it. He was soot-smeared, his hair dusty and tousled worse than usually, and Clark could honestly say that he had never seen Lex wearing clothes this dishevelled. Clark's blue T-shirt was still shredded, and Lex had lost the red jacket, it seemed.

"I went to Metropolis," Lex said, in a tone that suggested 'I went to hell and back.'

"Oh," was all Clark could think of.

"I don't know how many people died. I nearly destroyed the city. I nearly killed Lana. My Dad. You."

Lex didn't exactly sound guilty, but Clark took the shell-shocked tone to mean that Lex wasn't proud of it, either.

"You didn't. Zod did."

"If I hadn't given Fine the opportunity to infect me with the virus, none of this would have happened," Lex objected, switching suddenly from blank to fierce.

Clark went to kneel down next to him. Lex's volatile temper was making him wary, but he had dealt with an irrational Lex before. It was vastly preferable to cold and inscrutable Lex. "And if I hadn't tried to kill Fine, it wouldn't have happened either."

"It's both our fault," Lex agreed, suddenly fatally calm again.

Clark blinked, looking at him in confusion. He felt something he hadn't felt in a long time, the connection with Lex that used to be there, that had made it seem as if there were things only the two of them understood. Big, important things.

It was their fault. Anyone else would have told Clark not to worry, not to blame himself.

"I guess it wouldn't have happened if we hadn't lied to each other so much," Clark sighed.

"I'm surprised you told me the truth," Lex said after a moment, softly, almost in a whisper. "I didn't think you ever would. I even stopped gathering evidence."

Clark looked away. Now that they talked civilly to each other, it hurt all the more to know that their friendship was gone. "It's too late now."

He had hoped Lex would object, would at least answer, but there came nothing for a long time. Clark was almost ready to say the one last thing that was left to say, the apology that wouldn't change anything, when Lex asked,

"Will you help me rebuild the city?"

Clark gave Lex a startled glance, trying to see if this was a peace offering or a trick question or something else, but wearing Clark's face made Lex no more easy to read.

Rebuild the city. No one but Lex would ever suggest something like that, like the city was a toy smashed in a childish rage or an accident, like it was their responsibility to rebuild it, like it was the most normal thing in the world and yet infinitely meaningful. But it was their responsibility, and Clark wanted nothing more than to say yes, glad that Lex understood, that he didn't have to convince him or argue with him. He wanted so much to be able to talk to someone who understood about power and responsibility and Lex was the only one who ever had…

"What about this?" Clark moved his hand between them vaguely, but Lex understood that, too. He brushed the hair out of his face, the intensity about him lowering to normal levels as he gathered his thoughts.

"Do you still have the crystal that did this?"

Clark did hesitate. Years of secrecy didn't just go away. But he knew that Lex was watching him, probably counting the seconds before Clark answered. Clark slipped it out of his pocket and showed it to him.

"So," Lex said, lips quirking into a rusty, twisted smile. "You lied to my Dad. In case we don't manage to reverse this, that's a promising sign."

*

They didn't manage to reverse it, and Lex was momentarily distracted from the general misery of the situation by the fact that Clark did not in the least know how his alien technology worked. How could Clark not know that? Clark even admitted that he could have learned how to use it. It made Lex irrationally angry, which wasn't helping his attempt to get his emotions back under control.

In any case, all Clark had to contribute to the process was, "We touch it, and then we sorta think about switching."

Not surprisingly, nothing happened with that kind of approach to the problem.

Lex wasn't too sure about very many things right now. He'd made decisions this last year, hard and painful ones, against his instincts and ambitions. He'd chosen goals that seemed attainable over those that were truly desirable. He'd chosen Lana over the chance of reconciling with Clark. He'd chosen power over winning by better, fairer means. He'd given up on being a good and a great man in favour of being safe and happy. It might have worked, it might not have worked, but now his life had been interrupted, had been thrown into darkness and chaos like the city and Lex had the opportunity to reconsider.

The truth was out between him and Clark. From the moment Lex had suspected that there was a truth to be known, he'd been sure that it would make all the difference in the world if Clark told him willingly or not. He hadn't. Lex had no delusions that Clark would have lied today as he always had if there had been any chance of Lex believing his lies, now that he was in Clark's body and could firsthand experience the truth.

But Clark had lied to him before even when it had been obvious. And this time he hadn't lied, hadn't insulted Lex's intellect with his awkward excuses.

And aside from the truth, which was a two-edged sword, since Lex had accumulated secrets of his own over the years, Clark had saved Lex's life.

Clark had saved Lex's life so many times that it had become meaningless, a habit almost, but this time felt as important as the first – maybe more. Clark had spared Lex.

Lex was sure that no one else in the world would have. His own father would have easily killed him. Lana would have done it – according to Clark, she had tried it and nearly succeeded. And Lex couldn't blame her. He would have killed himself to stop Zod, now that he had seen what Zod had done to Metropolis.

It meant something. Clark hadn't spared Lex out of weakness. He had killed meteor mutants before when necessary. Something in him had wanted Lex to live. Had found him worthy – worth the risk.

For a horrible second, Lex hated Clark for being that… good. He didn't want to be grateful. He didn't want to acknowledge that this time, Clark had been the better man.

And at the same time, he felt the need to live up to Clark's show of confidence.

Lex thought he had long given up on trying to be worthy of Clark Kent's ridiculously hypocritical standards. Not so much apparently. Maybe his Dad had warped him so much that Lex needed a bar raised impossibly high in his life.

And right now, Lex had a body made to jump impossibly high.

Clark handed Lex a fresh T-shirt and a pair of his jeans to replace the ruined clothes Lex still wore. The cotton smelled of detergent and hay, the kind of smell Lex had learned to savour like a forbidden pleasure.

"You need to talk to my lawyers as soon as possible to do damage control," Lex said absentmindedly. This was the kind of thing he could talk about in his sleep. "No court will convict me for this – the authorities will most likely refuse to accept the existence of alien life and if Zod is on any security footage, he'll be doing impossible things. You'll be fine, just let the lawyers do their work."

He peeled off the shredded blue shirt and Clark didn't turn away, even when Lex glanced at him expectantly. Probably Clark had decided that Lex didn't need privacy to undress in Clark's body.

Undressing Clark's body. Lex tried not to look or think too hard about it, but he couldn't help feeling. Soft skin, a dusting of coarse hair here and there, a vibrant warmth in every fibre. Grime and dried sweat still on his skin, Clark's body was far from clean even under the fresh shirt, but it only added to the strange sensuality, making it more real, less Lex's own body.

He paused with his hands on the button on Clark's jeans, but didn't look at Clark, who still hadn't turned away. It was downright rude now, or something else entirely. Maybe Clark was watching because he didn't trust Lex with his body.

Lex was glad for Clark's bangs as he felt his cheeks heat. He didn't trust himself with Clark's body, he never had. God, how many times had he thought he was over this and yet he never was. Head bowed, he fumbled with the button.

There was a loud pop and the button was stuck in a wooden beam some metres away, lodged as firmly as a bullet.

"You need to be careful," Clark said without even so much as a blink as Lex was still staring at the button. He turned around, startled by the serious tone.

"You have to be in control, all the time," Clark went on, and how ridiculous was it to tell Lex this, only, it wasn't. Lex had always thought no one could be more in control than a Luthor, but Clark… Clark had to be in control on a wholly different level. It was a surprise Lex hadn't broken anything yet.

"You only need to let your attention slip for one second, and someone could get hurt." Clark's stern expression was a perfect echo of the late Jonathan Kent.

"I could kill someone," Lex said, remembering how he'd thrown his father across the field. He'd only intended to push him away… distressed, he pulled at the hem of Clark's slipping jeans. "How do you do it?"

Clark deflated a little. "I try very hard. I never let down my guard. And I was reminded of it lots and lots by my parents when I was a kid."

Clark should be able to move with the grace and control of a martial arts master, Lex thought, if he practised that much constant self-discipline. How much of the awkwardness was really just for show?

But Lex had had his own lessons as a child. He doubted that Jonathan Kent had been a sterner teacher than Lionel. If he could control his emotions, then he could control this body.

"I'll manage."

Clark looked him up and down, then nodded, surprisingly quick in his approval. "I guess you've got a better chance than most people," Clark agreed. "Still, be careful."

*

Clark tested Lex's self-assessment by telling him to take them to the mansion.

"This way you can break your own arms before you try anyone else's," he joked uneasily, but then he was silent as Lex's expression shuttered completely and he moved in to seize Clark around the waist. Lex's body was slim, but not that much shorter than Clark's, and it was an awkward hold that forced Clark to wrap his arms around Lex's neck. So close, flush against each other, with only thin fabric between them, Clark was seized by an odd disorientation, an out of body feeling, as if he were at once in his own body and Lex's body, as if they shared one body, one continuous being, one body with two minds. He barely noticed the rush of air or the motion as Lex ran them to the mansion.

When Lex set him down, Clark lingered, unsure how to move, almost unable to do so. Lex had a strangely raw expression on his face when he finally made the step away, leaving Clark behind with the feeling of being stretched impossibly thin.

"We need to dress you in something else and destroy Zod's clothes before you meet my lawyers," Lex said, turning away rather quickly. He'd run them straight to his own room and swiftly gave Clark some his own clothes that he pulled out of a closet. He didn't look on as Clark undressed and dressed.

Clark threw Zod's clothes onto a small pile on the marble floor of the adjoining bathroom when he was done.

"Try looking at them really hard," he told Lex, who ambled over to look at them with a bemused expression on his face.

"Looking - ?" Lex began, then startled. "Clark? Am I supposed to see my plumbing?"

"What? No. That's x-ray vision. Try to make it normal again."

Lex sounded irritated. "How?"

"Just do it. It's like using a telescope – or a microscope or something. Got it?"

"No. I'm seeing… that's… you have microscopic vision? How small can you go?"

"You've seen those images of individual atoms? Like on the internet?"

"I'm seeing the originals, I think." Lex sounded faintly breathless.

"Smaller than that. But don't try it, you'll get a headache. Go back to normal."

It took some squinting and staring, but finally Lex blinked a couple of times and relaxed. He turned to Clark. "Alright, fascinating as that was, what was the point?"

"Actually I wanted you to use heat vision. I can incinerate things by looking at them. It's important that you learn to control that power quickly, it's really dangerous."

"I can imagine. By incinerate you mean - ?"

"Really darn hot. I can melt metal."

Lex raised his brows then turned back to the clothes. "Any special trick?"

Clark cleared his throat. He was glad Lex never blushed, hopefully it was a physical thing and he was safe in Lex's body. "Um, you could think of… uh… hot things?" That sounded possibly even more idiotic in Lex's usually smooth voice than his own.

"Hot as in oven?" Lex inquired, his tone suspicious.

"Uh, look, maybe you should try getting angry?"

Lex made a low sound, almost a chuckle, then stilled. Clark watched him frown in concentration. Lex's look became distant, making Clark's eyes seem a cold green, almost like the other Kryptonians' eyes, and then his mouth set in a thin line.

The clothes vanished in a puff of smoke, leaving only a small cloud of dust. Clark was impressed. Lex straightened, his eyes squeezed shut, and then, after a moment, relaxed with a small exhale of breath. When he looked at Clark, his eyes were a clear hazel once again, open and almost… serene.

"That was strangely cathartic," Lex said.

*

They went to the den next, cleaning up quickly all evidence of Zod's presence until they stumbled on the broken parts of another piece of Kryptonian technology. Lex seemed mesmerized by the charred piece, squinting at it from all angles until Clark got impatient.

"Your vision is incredibly useful," Lex said, waving his complaints away. "Is all your technology based on crystalline structures?"

"I don't know. Didn't you want me to talk to your lawyers?"

Clark regretted suggesting that very soon. Lex gave him some quick instructions how to handle the conversation, then got him on a phone with the loud speaker on, settling opposite Clark with a piece of paper and a pen. The moment it came to business, Lex clearly believed he was the one in charge. He wrote down answers for Clark faster than the sharp-voiced lady on the other end could finish her sentences, and Clark read them out, feeling incredibly stupid. Finally Lex signalled him to end the conversation.

"This isn't working," Clark complained. "I can't pretend I'm you."

"It's not as hard as it looks. You don't have to make any decisions. People will try to anticipate your wishes as much as possible, just let them do their jobs."

"We need to find a way to reverse this," Clark insisted. "We're going to the Fortress."

*

They were both quiet and subdued when they returned from the Fortress to the caves. Jor-El didn't speak to Clark anymore. The once clear crystals had turned a sickly, foreboding shade of red, as if the architecture were slowly bleeding to death. They had no more answers than before, and much less hope at figuring this puzzle out.

Jor-El was gone, Jonathan was gone, and Clark found himself ridiculously glad that at least he could talk to Lex again. They hadn't yet said a word about the state of their friendship, but at least they weren't yelling and trying to kill each other. The secret that had lurked like a huge monster in every room with them for years was now out in the open, and apparently not quite as monstrous as Clark had feared. Compared to Lana, Lex was definitely handling the truth better so far.

"We should visit Lana, shouldn't we?" Clark asked as they stepped out into the summer evening. He dreaded that conversation with Lana, because the last time they had talked, she had said horrible things…

"I assume you'll want to continue to lie to her," Lex said flatly.

Clark met his eyes defensively. "My secret is dangerous."

"It's no longer just your secret," Lex pointed out. "And not knowing might be as dangerous for Lana as knowing. It certainly was for me."

It was unfair somehow that Lex still managed to make Clark feel guilty.  
"She can't handle it, Lex. She already told me she didn't know how she could ever love me – do you think that'll be any different if she finds out that I am an alien?"

"If Lana hates you, then it's not because you're an alien, Clark." The soft, accusing sound of his voice had barely reached Clark when there was a blast of air and Lex vanished at full speed, leaving Clark once more behind. He really, really had to apologize to Chloe for doing this all the time.

It was a long walk back to the mansion. Clark felt sick knowing that Lana would find out about him soon, and tired to the bone from this exhausting day. Even when he had been shot, when he had felt the life bleeding out of him, he hadn't felt this much like a mortal.

What if they didn't manage to reverse this? What was left for Clark then? A lonely mansion, a company he didn't know how to manage, money he didn't want, attention from Lionel he wanted even less.

Clark wished he didn't, but he understood why Lex would envy him. He understood why Lex wanted his life, his family, his friends. Clark had gotten the poorer deal out of this, and for the first time in his life, he would have done anything to be Clark Kent again, with all his secrets and his freakish alien superpowers. He really had been an ungrateful bastard.

It was getting dark by the time Clark dragged himself up to Lex's mansion, and he nearly missed the hulking figure sitting on the doorstep of the servant's entry.

Lex had his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped loosely, and was staring at the ground between his feet as if it held the mysteries of the universe. Clark stopped a few feet away from him, unsure what to say. Lex glanced up and Clark saw the weariness on his face.

"I went to the hospital," Lex started.

"How… how did she take it?" Not well, that much was obvious. What if Lana decided that she didn't want to keep the secret, that she was going to tell the world?

Lex's face twisted into a bitter smile. He shook his head. "I didn't tell her."

Clark blinked numbly. "Why?"

Lex sighed and got up, dusting off his jeans. "You were right. Lana was scared of the aliens from the ship before, but whatever she went through with Zod has…turned her into a fanatic."

"Is she alright?"

"Physically, yes. But she – " Lex hesitated, then laughed hollowly. "Lana thought she was talking to you, Clark, and apparently, she thinks she needs to defend me in your eyes. She said that no matter what I did, it would be justified to stop the 'aliens'. It was… an eye-opening experience in xenophobia."

Clark knew it would have been polite to say he was sorry, but he wasn't, so he didn't pretend to be. This sounded as if Lex and Lana wouldn't be dating any longer and Clark didn't think Lex regretted it very much – Lex had only stolen her from Clark to hurt him, and if he had any regrets about it now, it served him right. If Lex was going to leave Lana alone, then Clark guessed he could forgive it eventually. Lana was another story. Despite the hurtful things she'd said to Clark, he felt sorry for her. She was probably wondering why Lex wasn't visiting her in the hospital, but there was no way Clark could go and pretend he was Lex. Staying away would be easier for all of them.

"So you just left?"

"She told me she no longer wanted to see me – or I guess it'd be more correct to say that she told you she no longer wanted to see you. Chloe was visiting her cousin, by the way. She didn't see me, but she seems to be fine."

Clark was relieved to hear that, although he wished he could talk to Chloe himself. They still had that kiss to discuss… Clark didn't know what to do about that. He liked Chloe a lot. Not in the same way he had liked Lana, but in a way that felt a lot… easier. Maybe dating Chloe would be like dating Alicia, only without the bad psycho stalker part. But it'd be weird to talk to her about this while he was still in Lex's body.

"You look like hell," Lex said, apropos of nothing.

"I feel like it," Clark muttered. "Do you – do I need to stay at the mansion?"

Clark supposed he had to stay at the mansion for appearance' sake, but he wanted nothing more than to go home, see his Mom, have dinner and fall asleep in his own bed. He needed to help her clean up the barn, too…

"Go home, Clark," Lex said, sounding just as tired. "The staff isn't back yet anyway. I'll do what work I can do from my laptop and come by in the morning. Take one of my cars, you know where the keys are."

Clark almost nodded and went, but then hesitated. "You could take the laptop and come, too."

Lex gave him an odd, inscrutable look, and Clark knew he was going to decline, coolly polite and distanced. They weren't that far yet in their tentative truce. But Mom would disapprove, and Clark preferred to have Lex close, too. He had the feeling that a night alone in the mansion would only serve to make Lex reconsider his choices, and Clark liked the choices Lex had made today.

"We could need a hand with the tough jobs," he offered, and then remembered an old trick. "And my Mom probably wants to feed me – all parts of me."

*

Martha Kent didn't seem to be surprised to see both of them walking into her kitchen. She looked exhausted, with splinters of wood stuck in her auburn hair and her clothes smudged with dust – all farmwife and no senator. Lex had never really envied her the job, once he had lost it to her. It was hard to envy Martha Kent anything. She was the one Kent Lex could never find fault in. She looked at the two of them, just one, questioning glance, then asked, "You haven't found a way to reverse this yet?"

Clark shook his head, slumping down at the table without much grace. Lex felt a sudden urge to lecture him on keeping up one's appearances. Even when he had gone through his own slouching phase, he had slouched artfully. Strangely enough, the lack of posture had never bothered him with Clark before, not while Clark was himself.

"We tried the Fortress, but it's dead," Clark told his mother. "Jor-El won't talk to me."

She sighed, then gave them a tired but reassuring smile. "We'll figure this out somehow."

"I'd like to apologize for the damage I caused," Lex told her. He had seen the barn, and part of the wreckage came from the fight he and Clark had had there. Apologizing to Clark wasn't an option yet, because Clark himself had made no move to apologize and Lex wasn't going to make it seem as if everything was his fault, but he felt he owed Martha Kent the same kind of apology he owed the people of Metropolis.

Martha waved it away. "I'm glad you got it out of your systems. You know about Clark now, and as Jonathan would have said, that makes you a part of this family. Families argue. The important thing is that they make up afterwards."

Lex doubted that Mr Kent would ever have said that to him, but he appreciated the words nonetheless. They caused a strange sensation in his belly, half shiver, half warmth, and Lex wondered if it was alien in nature, or merely unfamiliar.

"I also need to apologize for some of the things I did last year. I employed methods in the electoral campaign that were far from fair, but you need to know that you have my deepest respect as a senator, Mrs Kent – "

She shook her head with a small exasperated laugh. "Excessive guilt seems to be hotwired into that body," she said with an affectionate glance at her son. "We all had a hard day, Lex. A hard year. Let's just hope it's over now. If you still feel bad, you can give me a hand in the barn – after dinner."

Humbled by the knowledge that she probably had no idea what she was forgiving, Lex took a seat at the table as well.

Clark went to call Chloe while Mrs Kent made them sandwiches and told Lex what she knew about the damage caused in Kansas and the rest of the States. She was well-informed and Lex could only wonder how busy her day had been, as a mother and a senator, stretched between all kinds of responsibilities. Still, she refused any help with the food or any further attempts at apologizing.

When Clark returned, he was rubbing his temples. "Wow, Chloe was kinda hard to convince it was really me," he huffed, dropping the phone on the table. "I think she believes me now, though."

Lex had had dinner with the Kents before, but tonight it felt very different. The conversation was quieter, but far more relaxed. Maybe there had been a deeper truth in Martha's words, and you really needed to know Clark's secret to be part of the family, but maybe it was also something about how Martha treated the two of them – as adults, equally respected and held responsible for their actions, not children to be guided and protected with a firm hand, the way Jonathan Kent had always acted. Lex wondered if it was her husband's death that had brought the difference, or if it was her way of letting Clark grow up.

"I was thinking about how we should handle the disaster relief in Metropolis," he said after listening to the two of them for a while. "Clark and I want to undo as much of the damage we caused as possible, and I think we could maximize our success if we had you to handle the political angle, Mrs Kent."

She gave him a surprised, somewhat puzzled look. "That is a wonderful idea, Lex. What makes you think I wouldn't want to help?"

"You would be working with Luthor money."

"We would be using it for a good cause," she replied. "I see no harm in that."

Clark didn't object, and the lack of resistance threw Lex off his course. He nodded, and finished his food quietly, deep in thought. Today the world was different, shaken in its angles, interrupted in its usual flow. It was a time to reconsider, a time to remember the important things, a time to remember what you had to lose.

A time to make things grow out of the ashes of the past.

*

Some time later, Clark sat by the table with a dazed and drowsy expression, looking impossibly rumpled for someone wearing designer clothes. Lex on the other hand felt only mental exhaustion, but physically, he was fit and energetic as ever.

"Does your body tire at all?"

"I haven't yet found anything to wear me out," Clark shrugged indifferently. "Asides from being human."

"And meteor rocks," Lex said and startled when Clark snapped to attention all of a sudden, staring at him with wide blue eyes. Aha, he thought, so Clark isn't entirely incapable of thinking in tactical terms.

"How do you know about the meteor rocks?"

"Lana said the aliens from the ship could be hurt by the rocks. And Fine confirmed it. And in hindsight – I had all the evidence to see that you can be hurt by them as well. That's what accounts for all the times you were mysteriously weakened, isn't it?"

"Not all," Clark admitted. He still looked spooked. It was surprisingly disappointing to see the distrust so starkly written on his face, and Lex decided that he needed some time away from Clark.

"I'll go to Metropolis," he said, getting up from the table before this could devolve into another pointless argument.

"To do what?"

"Save people. Rescue children out of collapsed buildings. Extinguish fires. Help kittens from trees," he replied off-hand, feeling twenty years old and bratty. Lex hadn't realized before that somewhere along the way, he had stopped being young. He couldn't tell if he missed it, but it held a certain… freedom to behave foolishly that was exhilarating. Lex headed for the door and fully expected Clark to protest, or lash out in anger, but all he got was a soft call that dampened his temper.

"Remember to be careful," Clark said.

*

Of all the revelations of this endless day, maybe the night spent in Metropolis was the strangest. The chaos and destruction of the city was as frightening as it had been the first time. Lex fully expected another breakdown when he opened his senses to the city once again, but this time it was subtly different, still maddening, but not quite as terrifying. He had purpose, and with each person he pulled out of the rubble, each little catastrophe averted, this purpose grew, together with the knowledge that he could change things, make a difference, do good without causing destruction. He had to make choices, but Lex found the kind of choices someone with Clark's powers had to make infinitely more easy to make than having to decide whether the ends justified the means.

But there was no room for envy in the hectic pace Lex set himself. No room for gratitude from the people he saved, no room for pride. All he could do was hurry, hurry, at an inhuman pace and still too slow to save everyone. At first Lex counted, but then even counting became a waste of time in the rush of action. It wasn't just Metropolis, either. He could be in Kansas city, in Topeka, in Gotham, within the space of seconds, and everywhere there was need.

By the time the cover of night lifted from the sky, Lex's hands were black with soot and dried blood, but it felt as if he had washed them clean in the clearest of waters.

For every person Lex had killed, for every person he had hurt and ruined in the course of his life, there was now one who lived just because of him.

*

Martha gasped when she saw him walking into the house. It was barely five, and Lex was surprised to see her up already. Clark was nowhere around and probably still asleep.

"It's alright, Mrs Kent," he assuaged her, "it's just dirt."

"You were out there all night?" she asked. He nodded, taking off Clark's sneakers at the door. They were in tatters, and Lex decided to look into a more stable material for shoe-soles at the first opportunity. The only clothes he had ever worn until he wore them out were those that he had had with him on the island… strange, he had never been able to think of the island without a small pang of dread, without needing a glass of scotch. Now it seemed very far away.

"Will we see you on the news?" Martha asked, half joke, half apprehension.

"I doubt anyone saw me long enough to give anything like an accurate description. I was as careful as possible under the circumstances."

She considered him for a moment, then nodded, apparently satisfied. "I wish I wasn't so over-protective," she admitted, "but we had so much to worry about when Clark was a boy… I guess some fears just become instincts. But I'm always proud of Clark, and the same goes for you, Lex. As much as I'd like to think better of people, most men wouldn't use Clark's powers the way you do now."

Lex shook his head, refusing the compliment. "I've grown up with the temptations of power, Mrs Kent."

She smiled, as if she knew a secret but wasn't going to tell. "Go take a shower, Lex. Breakfast will be done soon."

A polite declination was on the tip of Lex's tongue, he didn't normally take anything but coffee for breakfast, but his body reacted to the thought of food like Pavlov's dog. Right, he was Clark, and Clark could always eat. Bemused, Lex wandered up the stairs. It gave him the opportunity to get reacquainted with the Kents' house. The place looked much the same, the pictures on the walls hadn't changed except for the few more of Jonathan that had been added, but some things were different, too, having been rebuilt after the second meteor shower. The bathroom looked newer than Lex remembered it from his stay at the Kent farm four years ago during the affair with Lucas.

His eyes fell on the mirror, and he froze. For the first time he saw himself, and yet not himself. Clark's face, handsome and familiar as ever even under all the grime, stared back at him, and Lex couldn't really see himself underneath. It sent a prickle of discomfort down his spine.

How much could he really be himself while in another body? The whole idea of transplanting a mind into another body made no sense from a scientific point of view, much less a human mind into an alien body. How much of him had been rewired? How much could he trust his perception of self? What was even left of him that was purely Lex Luthor and not some alien part grafted onto him by drugs and viruses and all kinds of people messing with his mind and his body? Fear reared its head, ugly and fierce, and Lex had to force himself not to scream.

He had never before wanted so much to be himself and never before been so uncertain of who he was. And there was no way of being certain. He was subject to change, his self an ephemeral, vulnerable thing, and his memory of who he had been was no more to be trusted than his perception of who he was now. He remembered, dimly, a sense of utter certainty that he had once possessed, an innate knowledge of who he was supposed to be, who he would become one day. It seemed laughably far away now, and barely comprehensible.

The moment was interrupted by the door opening and Clark shuffling in with a huge yawn. He looked still somewhat dazed and startled to see Lex. "Lex? What are you doing?"

Lex blinked, then turned away from the mirror. The sense of vertigo was gone. "Having a moment of existential angst."

Clark gave him a look of sleepy amusement. "Never too early for that, huh?"

It was a strangely companionable moment, in the small bathroom with the curtained windows and the dust motes dancing in the early morning light, everything shifting and new, unfamiliar and yet promising. For a second, Lex felt at peace, and able to forgive and forget all the personal sleights and injuries between them. Not enough to let it go, just enough to live with it.

"I'll have to borrow some more of your clothes."

"Serve yourself," Clark mumbled, turning on the water in the sink to wash his face.

*

By the time Lex returned to the bathroom, Clark had vacated it and the sounds of breakfast being prepared drifted up the staircase. It smelled of bacon and eggs, and for once, the smell wasn't making Lex nauseous.

He avoided the mirror this time, and undressed like one would undress a sick person, never letting his touch linger longer than was absolutely necessary.

Clark's body was still a model of physical perfection, and entirely human in all aspects. Regarding it with clinical interest helped – if Lex imagined it under a microscope, he didn't have to imagine it in the bedroom. But when he let warm water run down his back and felt the grime being washed away, when he rubbed shampoo into his hair and let the silky strands slide through his fingers, marvelling at the feel of a scalp with hair, Lex felt a sense of reverence, of wonder, as he hadn't felt it since the first time he laid eyes on this body.

He towelled and dressed at superspeed, knowing that he had already lingered too long, and made it down to the kitchen just in time to see Mrs Kent put a plate of pancakes on the table between the bacon and the scrambled eggs.

"I've got to hurry, boys, " she said, taking a sip from her coffee. "There's an emergency meeting at eleven I need to attend. What are your plans for today?"

"I don't think we can postpone a meeting with the LuthorCorp board much longer."

"In person?" Clark looked and sounded panicked.

"Either that, or we give over the reins to my Dad, which I would prefer not to do," Lex replied.

He watched Clark glance down at his full but untouched plate, his jaws working with something like worry. Clark had dressed himself in a too big T-shirt and an old pair of jeans, and didn't look ready for a board meeting at all. Lex wondered if it was possible for him to dress up and accompany Clark as his assistant. Aside from Lionel, no one would probably notice the charade.

"I just have to sign stuff, right?" Clark muttered.

"Mostly." Whatever had worried Clark wasn't gone, but Lex waited until Martha Kent had hurried out of the kitchen to get ready for work before he asked warily, "What's the problem?"

Clark toyed with his fork. "Your Dad. I have a bad feeling. When I met him yesterday, he was… different."

Lex raised his brows, filling his plate with food. He felt downright greedy this morning. "I can't say I've ever had a good feeling when it came to my Dad, so you'd have to be more specific."

"I thought he had changed," Clark replied, pushing away his own plate to focus on the orange juice. "While he had the connection to Jor-El, it felt as if I could trust him. But yesterday he gave me a look… maybe it's just because I'm in your body."

"Sadly, I doubt that he'll treat me any different than usual because I'm in your body. Frankly, I have a hard time buying my Dad's reformed act. If you think it was caused by his connection to your biological father, then we most likely have to assume that he's back to his old ways."

"He knows my secret!" Clark protested.

Lex nodded, feeling a grim resolve settling into him. "He's less powerful than he used to be, Clark. He'll try to find weaknesses wherever he can, and most likely he'll think he can exploit our situation somehow, but I'll make it clear to him that - ," your family is under my protection, Lex wanted to say, but back-pedalled in the last moment, "I'm fully in control, even if I'm not in my own body."

It was all about appearances. 

*

Clothes make the man wasn't a truism for no reason. Seeing himself and Clark dressed in sharp business clothing made Lex confident that they could present themselves to the LuthorCorp board and emerge, if not victorious, then at least unscathed.

Clark looked more comfortable in a suit than Lex would have expected, but maybe it was because it wasn't his own body and he was used to seeing Lex dressed formally. Lex, on the other hand, barely recognized himself out of the primary colours and jeans. He had found a grey suit, not too expensive, but not screaming bodyguard, either, and a boring blue tie, and then in a stroke of genius, had added a pair of wire-rimmed glasses with no proscription. It made Clark's ridiculously pretty face seem older and more professional, and if Lex slumped a little and didn't meet people's eyes, he was confident that most people would overlook him like they tended to do with young assistants of insanely rich men.

"I don't see why you have to make me look silly. I thought we were trying to impress your Dad," Clark said dubiously.

Lex was still experimenting with his hair. He spared Clark only a sideways glance. "By successfully impersonating someone we're not, we show him that we're in control of who we are."

Clark gave him a little smile that Lex hadn't seen since the earliest days of their friendship. It said, you're full of bullshit, and it had never failed to make Lex smile in return. It had been a very long time since anyone had reminded Lex that most of his acts were acts, since someone had played the court jester to his perfect Luthor heir. He couldn't return the smile now, because he wasn't sure if there really was an act – for there to be an act, there had to be truth, but Lex wasn't sure what the truth was, if there was a real Lex Luthor behind the mask, or if the mask had become the man.

But this was about appearances, not about truth.

*

They arrived last in the board room, breezing in while everyone else was already seated. The room with its dark marble floor and large, spotless glass table was impossibly clean, as if no disaster could touch this ivory tower, but the city beyond the large windows proved it a lie. They were only a thin pane of glass away from destruction.

Lex had been psyching Clark up till the last moment, when they stepped out of the elevator and slipped into their roles.

Let them do the talking for you. The less you say, the more nervous they'll be, and the more they'll talk. Don't show anything but approval or disapproval. Don't hesitate, don't explain your decisions. There were an infinite number of rules it seemed to Clark, and they all boiled down to having a perfect poker face.

"If nothing helps, think of opera," was Lex's last piece of advice.

Clark wasn't thinking of opera. He was trying to remember who was who of the men around the table, so he'd know whom to address when. He was thinking of dropping to his knees in front of Zod, and the look of triumph on Zod's face when he was fooled by Clark's act.

Clark could act. He wasn't a good liar, but he could act. He could pretend to be clumsy so well that Pete had never even suspected Clark cheated at basketball. He could play dumb so well that none of his math teachers had ever suspected that Clark was faster than your average pocket calculator.

If Clark could pretend to be human, then he could pretend to be Lex.

"We're not here to waste time, gentlemen," he said without much inflection, just repeating the lines Lex had given him in the elevator. He slid into the chair, picturing Lex's way of moving, smooth and understated. "Myers, your report, please."

One of the youngest men, bearded and bespectacled, rose from his chair, clearing his throat and launched into a stream of numbers and statistics that had no resemblance to the catastrophe that had happened the day before, and yet was supposed to represent it.

Lex was jotting down notes, and Clark remembered that he wasn't supposed to look at Lex. I'm an employee, Lex had said, without much of an explanation. Clark got it. Lex was hiding in plain sight, the way Clark usually tried to.

His eyes wandered to Lionel. Lionel wasn't listening to Myers, either. He was staring at the two of them, a mixture of calculating interest and disapproval playing on his face. Clark could tell that Lionel was just waiting for the chance to seize the reins.

"Enough," he said, interrupting Myers in mid flow. Okay, he had to tamp down the imperious tone a little. He sounded like himself on red kryptonite and not like Lex. Lionel was smiling. "Rowland, when can we expect production to resume?"

Lionel's eyes narrowed, flitting from Lex to Clark. Myers settled down as the middle-aged Mr Rowland started to speak, tapping a pen to the table. "Hard to say, Mr Luthor."

Clark said nothing, but he felt sweat break out on his back. Wait until they get nervous and talk, Lex had insisted, but every pause would invite Lionel to charge in.

"About seventeen percent of our employees are inconvenienced, hospitalized or haven't yet given a life sign. The roads are closed and we have to deal with property damage – "

Rowland was a short, balding man, heavy and lethargic looking, but the longer Clark stared at him, the wider his watery eyes got. The man was scared of him and his silence. "Three days until we can resume production. At least three months until we can get back to full capacity – "

There was a nudge on Clark's knee, too fast for anyone but Clark to notice. What did Lex want him to say?

"Make it one," Clark said, ready to face disbelief from the members of the board. But no one looked particularly surprised. Rowland even slumped in relief. Lionel leaned back in his chair, apparently having decided that it wasn't the right time for an intervention.

The board meeting was an hour long, but time was fast and slippery, the moments flowing into each other, accentuated by sharp thrills of adrenaline and long boring stretches of listening to interchangeable voices. Clark couldn't understand how anyone could want to do this. It was like watching paint dry in a tank full of sharks.

When it came to signing stuff, Clark let Lex take the papers from people, who gave the impression of sorting them when Clark was sure than he was speed reading everything. Clark's part was to pretend to skim the papers Lex handed him and then just sign, faking Lex's signature. Before the members of the board or Lionel had time to gather their wits for trickier questions, Clark got up, took his suitcase from Lex, and said, "I'm one a busy schedule. Expect my individual responses to your requests in your inbox," and left. He tried to make it a fast but ordered retreat, but it was more of a run. Once in the elevator, he let himself fall against the wall and gasped for breath.

Lex looked perfectly composed, but the look Clark got from behind the fake glasses was sharp as a scalpel.

"Considering how dreadful a liar you are, I'm a little surprised by your ability to act," Lex said coolly as he pocketed the glasses.

"Not being myself makes a difference," Clark said. He'd realized that every time he'd opened his mouth in the boardroom. He was lying, but he wasn't lying as Clark Kent. They weren't seeing him, they were seeing Lex.

"So it's the disguise," Lex mused, still critical. "I was beginning to wonder if you ever put much effort into lying to me."

"I felt guilty then, alright?" Clark snapped. "None of the people in there were my friends. They don't even know who I am and I don't want them to know who I am – "

"Did you want me to know who you are?" Lex interrupted, taking a step closer.

Clark exhaled harshly. "Of course I wanted to! Do you think I enjoyed lying to everybody?"

Lex's eyes narrowed and he was now seriously pushing into Clark's personal space. Clark felt more than crowded, he felt as if his edges were blurring once again, and the boundaries of his self started breaking down so close to Lex.

"Did you drop me clues, Clark? Did you seek me out because you knew I was going to try and take the truth from you? If you were scared of me finding out, you could have stayed away, but you never did. Even when our friendship was over you still kept pushing into my life –"

The elevator stopped and the doors slid open. "I thought being friends with you was worth the risk," Clark hissed and pushed past him towards the roof, where the helicopter was waiting to take them back to the castle. A hand on his wrist stopped him, holding him with an iron grip. He gasped at the sudden pain, and it loosened, but only marginally. Lex stared him straight in the eyes.

"Clark. I want you to understand this," he said, slow and dangerous. "I investigated you because I thought being friends with you was worth the risk."

"What the hell –"

"Our friendship could never have prevailed with your secret between us. I had the choice between watching it fall apart or doing something to save it."

"By abusing my trust?" Clark yelled, jerking his hand, trying to get out of Lex's grip. Lex didn't budge. His face had frozen over.

"You never trusted me, Clark."

"I –" Clark fell silent, all the steam going out of him in a painful breath. "I was waiting…," he said softly.

"For what?" Lex demanded. "For me to prove myself? How? How could I have proven myself? Or were you just playing games with me, like my Dad?"

You could have let it go, Clark almost said, but that was a horrible lie. If Lex had let go, Clark would never have surrendered his secret. Chloe let it go, and he only told her when he had to.

"You were, weren't you?" Lex asked bitterly. "All these years you played a no-win game with me!"

Clark's breaths were coming in big shaky gulps, as if he were filling his lungs with water. "It was a no-win game for me, too!" he cried. "What should I have done? I … I couldn't tell you the truth and I couldn't stop lying to you. The only way I could have stopped it would have been by walking away!"

After a moment, Lex faltered, like a fortress crumbling stone by stone. Clark couldn't stop shivering, he was almost sobbing, and still Lex hadn't let go.

"But you didn't," Lex whispered, understanding dawning in his voice. "You stayed. You kept pushing into my life even when all that was left of our friendship was a wreck…"

It wasn't Clark who moved into the hug, and it wasn't Lex. They just drifted closer, like two celestial bodies in a fatal dance, caught in each other's gravity and slowly approaching the point of their final collision. At last, Lex let go of Clark's wrist and wrapped his arm around him, and Clark sank against him, feeling as raw and exhausted as he hadn't since he was nine and fell asleep crying over a dead calf. Lex felt warm and smelled of safety, smelled like Clark should smell, like home.

*

The helicopter landed at the mansion, and they changed back into more comfortable clothes – Clark into what he considered Lex-casual, with dark slacks and a pastel shirt, and Lex into Clark's clothes he'd worn this morning, picking up the pair of new sneakers he had ordered to be brought to the mansion. He listened to his answering machine, but there was no message from either Lana or his Dad, which was expected in Lana's case and ominous in Dad's.

Then, since Lex had given his staff a couple of days off to deal with the aftermath of what the media had started calling the "Dark Thursday", they drove to the Kent farm.

Their car wasn't the only one parked in the yard.

"That's Dad's car," Lex said as they stopped and both stared at it.

"What do you think he wants?" Clark asked.

Lex frowned, then pulled the key from the ignition. It was time to stop running. Still, Clark's question was a good one. What did Dad want?

"Clark, how close are my Dad and your mother?" It wasn't a polite question, but too important to forego. Clark turned to him with shocked eyes.

"What? You mean - ?"

"I'm not insinuating anything here, Clark," Lex stopped him. "Does she trust him?"

Clark shifted uneasily, glancing at the farmhouse. "I guess so."

"Alright, I'm going to be perfectly honest with you. Lionel is attracted to your mother, Clark. I'd be mystified that any woman has managed to capture his attention for so long, but knowing your mother, I'm not. Maybe he even fancies himself in love with her."

A comparison lurked at the back of Lex's thoughts, one that he would never have voiced to Clark and didn't want to admit to himself, either.

"But – "

"I'm certain that your mother only sees him as a good friend. But he's biding his time, and once it becomes appropriate, he'll make a move."

"We need to warn her!" Clark's hand was on the door, ready to jump out and storm into the house. Lex seized his arm, firmly but without using his strength.

"No, Clark. That'd be a very stupid thing to do, just as you telling Lana that she can't trust me. She needs to realize this on her own. Knowing your mother, I'm confident that she will."

Clark ground his teeth, still tense. "But he's only using her to get at me."  
"Quite the contrary," Lex replied, tamping down his irritation at Clark's usual self-centredness. This was just the reaction of an only child facing the fact that his mother had a life of her own. It was perfectly normal. "My father's interest in your mother is probably the one thing that keeps him from using his knowledge against you. He wants to stay in her favour, so he needs to play nice. And we have no choice but to play along, unless we want to drive him into a corner and face the consequences."

*

Clark was glad to have Lex with him to do the talking. He felt nauseous at the thought of Lionel moving into his Dad's place but he felt equally horrible at the thought of having to tell his Mom that one of her only close friends couldn't be trusted.

She looked happy when they walked in the door, giving both of them a quiet smile, and Clark wanted her to be happy, and not lonely and grieving. His Dad would have wanted her happy… just not with Lionel.

His eyes fell on Lionel, sitting at the table with the paper, and Clark wanted to throttle him. If he hurt her –

"Lex, Clark," Lionel greeted with a false smile, putting down the paper and getting up. "I was disappointed that you left so quickly. Your performance at the board meeting was… surprisingly excellent. I just told your mother how very pleased I am to see the two of you working together to such formidable results."

Clark expected Lex to answer with some barbed comment, rebutting Lionel's praise, but Lex was completely silent for a horrible second.

Martha beamed at all of them, putting down a bowl of salad and taking away Lionel's paper. "I'm proud of you, too."

Lex took a breath that fell just short of ragged, and Clark hoped he was the only one who noticed. Then he unfroze, pulled a chair and sat down at the table like a soldier jumping into the fray. "Were you, Dad? You looked a little uncomfortable in the meeting."

Lionel chuckled. "Oh, well, Lex, I was concerned at first. Your strategy seemed unreasonably risky to me – therefore I was all the more delighted to see it work out well."

Clark followed Lex's example, and sat down next to him, bristling at the thought of sharing a table with Lionel. When his Mom started setting the table for four, Clark was surprised for a second that the chair didn't break in his grip, but then he remembered that he had no super-strength.

"Does that mean we have your support?" Lex asked coolly.

Lionel leaned back, looking at his son in Clark's body, the distress on his face impossibly real even though Clark knew it had to be a fake. "Son, you have had my support for a long time now. I know we have had our differences, but I want nothing more than to bury them and be a family."

Lex smiled like a killer would smile at expertly done carnage. "Family."

"We may not all be related by blood," Lionel said, his voice gentle but his eyes cunning as he glanced from Lex to Clark, "but you, Clark and Martha are the people I care most about in the world. My connection to Clark's biological father being gone, or your little… ah… mix-up, doesn't change that in the least."

"Not kin, but kind, Dad?" Lex muttered.

"Exactly," Lionel smiled. "Will you be able to let go of the past, Lex? For future's sake?"

"And cast off my nighted colour? Of course, Dad," Lex said, returning the smile with mocking meekness. Lionel glowered, but only until Martha put the roast on the table.

The tension didn't lower throughout dinner. Clark answered monosyllabic to all questions, which left the brunt of the conversation to Martha and Lionel, who seemed oblivious to their sons' discomfort.

"Nighted colour?" Clark asked as he and Lex finally walked outside, both of them glad to get away from Lionel. "I think you went a little over board there, Lex. Your Dad didn't buy it."

"He wasn't supposed to. And that's Hamlet, Clark. It would have been your line, but since I wear your body, I thought it appropriate."

"I knew it was Shakespeare," Clark defended himself. "Just couldn't remember which. Speed reading doesn't make it any more interesting, you know?"

"Ah, I've missed your philistine view on things," Lex laughed.

"Yeah, sure, Lex. And my great manners and my taste in music." Clark grinned at him as they stepped into the barn. Things were still chaotic.

Lex returned the smile, unexpectedly sincere. "I missed you, Clark."

Clark lowered his eyes, touched and embarrassed all at once. "You know you're weird, right? No other guy would say stuff like that, " he muttered. "I missed you, too."

Clark would never have admitted it, but he admired Lex for being able to say things like that without being embarrassed. Still, Lex seemed to know when to stop with the heartfelt declarations. They started cleaning up the barn, talking about uncomplicated stuff, enjoying each other's company. It was the happiest Clark had felt since his Dad's death. Work on the farm never seemed like real work when you did it together with someone else. With Lex, who seemed to consider all of this some quaint, fascinating game and still tried to do everything as perfectly as possible, it had a special charm. It felt like playing pool at the mansion, only somehow more natural, and more grown-up, and most of all, more honest.

*

That evening, while Lex had already gone to resume his nightly disaster relief work, the farm got another visitor. Clark was glad to see Chloe's car and jogged outside to greet her, but when she got out of her car, she had a look on her face that kept him from hugging her.

"Oh my god," Chloe said slowly, staring at him. "It's really you. It's you in Lex Luthor's body!"

Clark laughed at her expression. "What's giving it away? The dirt on my designer pants?"

"No! Your grin!" Chloe accused. "It's your thousand mega-watt grin on Lex's face. This is so, so, so creepy!"

Clark's grin instantly subsided and that seemed to startle Chloe out of her shock. She gave him a wobbly, apologetic smile. "Look, I'd hug you, but this is really weird."

"Yeah, I know." Clark glanced nervously at his feet, then back at her. "Um, there's also… about before… when we…"

With a deep breath, Chloe said, "It was a one time thing. Adrenaline. The end of the world."

"Yeah. Yeah, the end of the world."

The awkward silence that threatened to settle was stopped by Chloe's next question, "So where's Lex?"

"In the city. He's using my powers to rebuild stuff and help people."

"Lex is the mysterious saviour?" Chloe sounded incredulous and delighted all at once. "I thought it was a hoax or some meteor freak gone good!"

"No, it's Lex," Clark confirmed.

"So… is that an end of the world thing, too? Or is Lex going down the Lionel Luthor path of reformed villainy now?"

His mood darkening instantly at the mention of Lionel, Clark shook his head. "We can't trust Lionel, Chloe. I think his whole change of heart might have been an act – or caused by his connection to Jor-El. It's gone now… and Lionel's definitely changed."

"Well, that sucks," Chloe said.

They walked inside together and settled down on the stairs to the loft. Chloe fell silent for a moment, and Clark could tell that she had something on her mind. He wondered if she felt as conflicted about the kiss as he did…

"Look, Clark, I hate playing messenger for you and Lana, or for Lex and Lana. I'm not going to try and tell you what to do, because you're not going to listen to me anyways. But I've got her sleeping on my couch, crying her eyes out all day, and I have to say, just leaving her at the hospital and not telling her anything was a pretty shitty thing to do."

Clark hung his head, feeling the pain of tense muscles all over his neck and shoulders. "I know."

"Well, good," Chloe said awkwardly. "Then maybe you'll understand that I couldn't just tell her nothing."

Clark froze, then jumped to his feet. "What did you tell her?"

Chloe craned her neck to stare up at him, then got up as well, taking a defensive step away. "Nothing! Jeez, Clark, do you really think I'd tell her your secret?"

Clark took a deep, relieved breath, then shook his head. He didn't know what to think anymore, what with the lines constantly shifting and friends becoming enemies and enemies friends. "No. I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that."

"I told her that you and Lex got your issues worked out and that you're kinda… absorbed with each other right now. It was the only thing I could think of that wasn't a total lie."

"How did she take it?"

Chloe grimaced nervously, then admitted, "Not so well."

*

Clark continued to spend his nights at home since there was no immediate need to pretend to be Lex outside of the couple of meetings and phone calls he had to do. Lex was planning to have some charity functions in the near future where Clark would have to play him, but until then, Clark could keep a low profile. Lex, on the other hand, worked non-stop, doing his own job from his laptop in the mornings, assisting Clark with playing his part as Lex, and spending all afternoon and night running across the country, using Clark's powers to clean up their mess.

The fires in the city had by now all been extinguished, but now another problem emerged. The police was completely unprepared for this situation, and in large parts of the city, the damage had been big enough to completely incapacitate the infrastructure. There was no water in these neighbourhoods, no electricity, no public transport. People had had their homes destroyed and were wandering the streets or crowded one of the makeshift shelters and camps.

The looters roaming the streets reminded Lex of his time on the island, with their frightened, feverish eyes and their desperate greed. When it came to survival, every act, however gruesome, became justified in the name of self-defence. He couldn't arrest anybody, so he disarmed them, dropping knives and firearms off in a LuthorCorp warehouse in the outskirts.

Lex had taken to wearing special clothes for his nightly exploits, heavy boots and dark clothes as well as a pair of opaque sunglasses. Clark had laughed at his get-up and made silly jokes about capes, but Lex hadn't missed the shadow of envy on Clark's face. He wanted to be out here, too.

And Lex was getting increasingly frustrated with not being able to do his own job properly. There was so much that needed to be done in the city and needed to be done now, that required someone who couldn't just give money to charity, but who could pressure the authorities into changing things.

During the fifth night, Lex was getting increasingly tired. At first he barely noticed, only when he started to sweat it occurred to him that this was strange. Lex hated sweating and wasn't a great fan of summer or excessive sunshine in general, and imperviousness to heat was one of the really nice perks of Clark's powers.

It wasn't even hot though when he returned to the farm, the sun had just risen half an hour ago, and still Lex felt sweat beading on his upper lip and his shirt stuck to the skin between his shoulders. A gust of wind abruptly turned the heat into a shiver.

He wasn't hungry, didn't want much but to sit down and close his eyes for a moment. But he had to hurry, shower and change clothes, because there were calls to be made in the morning and he still needed to supervise Clark in case anything unexpected came up in the conversations and Lex had to give him cues.

"Lex?"

He realized he had been staring off into space as he stood half-way between the door and the kitchen table. Martha was giving him a worried look.

"You don't look so hot," Clark said.

Lex waved it away. "Just a little dizzy. I get headaches from time to time."

"I don't." Clark's tone was alarmed.

True… he hadn't had a headache since they'd switched bodies… Lex frowned, unable to concentrate. His nose was itching strangely, as if he'd been inhaling irritant chemicals.

Martha ambushed him with a hand to his forehead. She made a worried humming noise. "You're burning up. Sit down."

"Thanks, I think I'll skip breakfast," Lex muttered, and she shook her head in disapproval.

"Sit down. You don't look well."

Lex blinked, at her, then at Clark. "Is this normal?" he inquired.

"No!" Clark said. "Did you come across any meteor rocks?"

Lex shook his head and lowered himself on a chair. Martha was right, sitting was good. He felt less dizzy.

"I think you might be sick," Martha said.

"I don't get sick," they both said nearly in unison. She smiled at them, apparently none too worried. It was ridiculously soothing to Lex, more than any vote of confidence from a high-paid doctor.

"Well, Clark, you said that you lost your powers while you were in the Phantom Zone. That means your immune system was weakened as well."

Lex startled and suddenly wasn't so dizzy or soothed anymore. "This could be an alien virus," he realized out loud. "If this body can be affected by it, there's no telling what it could do to humans. How sure are we that Clark didn't bring other things with him from the Phantom Zone? Alien microbes or spores could wreak havoc on Earth's ecosystem. We need to test me. There's equipment that was used for the spaceship from the second meteor shower…"

*

The Kents, Lex realized after half an hour of arguing his case, were the most contradictory people he knew. Wholesome, healthy, law-abiding – and willing to commit just about every crime in order to protect an illegal alien. They never visited church, and Lex had never heard any talk of religion in this house or from Clark, but they had opinions of science that were downright medieval, at least when it came to the idea of taking Clark to a laboratory.

Of course his position was considerably weakened by the fact that he couldn't claim not to ever have experimented on humans… he really had to do something about Level 33.1 before there was any chance of Clark finding out. The place could easily be refitted to be far less morally reprehensible…

He at least understood their mistrust of doctors. The only doctor he'd ever trusted was a criminal with entirely predictable levels of untrustworthiness… well, and his murderous ex-wife number two.

So instead of going to LuthorCorp and possibly saving mankind with science, Lex had to lie on the couch and drink tea and try not to sneeze. Only covering his face with his hands that first time had prevented him from blowing the kitchen to bits. That had effectively ended the argument and Mrs Kent forced him to lie down.

After Martha left, Clark took over hovering duty.

"I can read my e-mail," Lex protested when Clark took away the laptop.

"You're the one who insisted you had alien Ebola," Clark said evilly.

"It's because you never got to stay home sick as a kid, isn't it?" Lex sniffed. "You're going to vicariously enjoy my suffering."

"That and it's been a while since I had anyone to play a mean game of Go Fish."

The rest of the day was spent with undignified activities like infantile card games and inhaling steam. It called forth long buried memories of Lex's childhood, when he had been sick all the time and his mother had enjoyed coddling him nearly as much as Clark. His life before the meteor shower had always seemed like a blurred, featureless dream to Lex, but now pieces of it resurfaced with crystal clearness.

To Lex's surprise, most of them were happy memories.

*

That night, Lex slept in Clark's body for the very first time. He woke in the dark, his shirt clingy with sweat, the sound of a gentle surf haunting his memory. The dream he'd had was incredibly familiar, but it slipped from his grasp the more he tried to remember it.

He padded barefoot to the kitchen and got himself a glass of water. The night air cooled his body, drying the hair that was plastered to his forehead. There were crickets out in the fields around the farm, a constant hum and whisper, rising and falling like a tide.

His mouth tasted bitter, as if the tap water was really salty seawater, but the more he drunk, the thirstier Lex got.

He lay down again and was asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow. This time he dreamed of being tied down on a cold table, and light searing his eyes. The last he saw before he woke with a start was Milton Fine, melting into black crystals, laughing at him.

He realized it was a nightmare as he lay tangled in the blanket, shivering, sick, but sleep lapped at him like waves, a darker and more powerful current than before, and swept away consciousness before he could hold onto it.

When he woke the next morning, Lex felt fine. His body was rested and his mind clear as a sky after a storm. Everything had settled, not quite ordered yet, but calm.

He lay on the lumpy cushions and listened to Mrs Kent making coffee in the kitchen. He soaked in the scent of breakfast, Clark's old comforter, the sunlight filtering in through the curtains. Lex didn't usually indulge in escapist fantasies, but he knew that this one would stay with him for the rest of his life.

But it was a dream lived on borrowed time.

He got up, and quickly tidied up the couch, leaving the comforter folded on the coffee table. Then he slipped out the front door and speeded to the mansion. They had hidden the piece of Zod's device and Raya's crystal in different places, nearly impossible to find for someone without Clark's vision. Lex took both of them, studying them to confirm his suspicions.

He had asked Clark to read the Kryptonian letters on the object Zod had used to nearly destroy the Earth, but they were some form of code that made no sense to Clark.

But now Lex remembered. Not enough to read it, just the feeling. This piece meant power. More so, it was an actual power source. Images flashed in his mind, Zod walking up to Fine's ship –

He put the power source carefully on his desk and took a step back, then seized the crystal firmly in his hand and held it out in front of him. He felt the power coursing through him, faint tendrils, like sunlight being injected into his veins. It required perfect control of one's mind, pure concentrated will-power. He remembered how Zod had done it, the sensation of extending himself into the technology, of becoming one with it.

With a jolt of warmth, the crystal lit up. Light and heat began to rise from the broken piece of Fine's ship. Enough power to destroy the mansion, maybe the whole county. The power of a miniature sun, and all of it contained by Lex's will.

When it was done the power source crumbled to dust.

Lex knew that he held the key to world in his hands. Power and knowledge near infinite could be his once he reactivated the Fortress. He contemplated it for a long time, considering the possibilities, waiting to be tempted.

He considered what he could have if he took this, and what he couldn't have. He considered who he could be, and who he couldn't be.

He had to consider all this, carefully, because if he could make this one choice, then all choices that followed would be easy, whether he chose the one or the other path.

Then he went home.

*

"You couldn't have asked me before doing this?"

Lex had shown up just as Martha and Clark were starting to get worried about him, but when he told them what he had done, Clark looked increasingly angry. For once, Lex wasn't bothered by Clark's lack of trust. He had proven to himself that he could be trusted.

"I had an inspiration. I needed to test it immediately." And he had needed time to think, but Clark needn't know that. It was between Lex and himself, and it was done now. "I'm remembering things I had forgotten, but I don't know how long it'll last."

Clark's disapproving frown lessened, and Lex could see a softer expression shining through.

Martha, who had looked very pensive throughout Lex's explanation, spoke before Clark could. "You shouldn't hurry things too much. If repairing the Fortress means that you can return yourselves to your own bodies, then maybe you should take a day off. You've done nothing but work all this time, Lex, but Clark's powers are a wonderful gift. Jonathan was given them once, and I know he always wished he had had more time to experience them."

*

They hadn't agreed on a time, but Lex returned at sundown. He found Clark sitting on the stairs to the veranda, the Kents' dog curled up next to him. When Clark spotted him, there was more relief on his face than Lex wanted there to be, but at least it was relief and not surprise.

Clark scooted aside, and Lex sat down on the dusty stairs, letting the dog push her wet nose into the hollow of his hand, then gently petting her soft fur.

"So, what did you do?" Clark asked.

"Had a coffee in the Starbucks across from the Planet. They reopened today," Lex deadpanned.

Clark stared at him. "You're kidding."

"Actually, no. I've never been able to go anywhere but exclusive clubs and restaurants in Metropolis without being ambushed by reporters or stared at by the waiters." After a pause, in which Clark's expression only got more incredulous, Lex admitted, "I also ran across the Atlantic, wrestled lions in the Serengeti and read all the texts in the secret archives of the Vatican library. It'll take me years to process all the information I gathered today."

They were quiet for a long time, until the last rays of the setting sun cooled on their faces and the long shadows turned into twilight.

"Are you going to miss being me?"

Lex shook his head, wondering if Clark would ever fully understand. He got up and extended a hand. "Clark, the only way I can even get close to being you is by giving back what belongs to you."

Clark looked him straight in the eyes, and took the hand, letting himself be pulled to his feet. "Be yourself, Lex," he said when he stood.

Lex smiled at the heartfelt cliché. "I intend to."

He had things to prove, after all.

*

Clark was shivering, huddled close to Lex in the Fortress. The place was still shrouded in crimson darkness, and he regretted not having brought a flashlight or yet more warm clothes. Lex had been working with fullest concentration since they arrived, rerouting the crystals of the command console to find the correct combination that would respond to Raya's crystal.

Clark held it in his mitten-covered hands, feeling the hum of warm energy even through the layers of cloth.  
"Let's try this," Lex decided, and Clark gave him the crystal crest. Lex held it out in front of the console and pulled one of the crystals from its slot. For a second, nothing happened, then the console lit up with a low hum and the crest started to shimmer and glow, lifting slowly from Lex's palm and floating in front of them. Light blossomed forth, and then exploded suddenly. The shockwave swept them off their feet and threw them backwards, and Clark had to shield his eyes from the impossible brilliance.

A moment later, it was all gone. The crest fell to the floor, depleted of its energy. The crystal spires of the Fortress were restored to their icy brightness.

Then Jor-El's voice rang out through the Fortress. "Kal-El. You have returned to your Fortress. Where did you acquire this crystal?"

"In the Phantom Zone," Clark called out. "I met a girl named Raya there. She said she knew you!"

Jor-El didn't reply for a long moment, then spoke again. "You have exchanged bodies with the human vessel for Zod. This was not my intention when I gave you the dagger."

Well, it would have helped if Jor-El had explained his intentions a little more clearly, then. How was Clark supposed to know what would happen when he attacked Fine with it? "It happened when I pulled Zod out of Lex's body."

"This would not have happened if you had finished your education," Jor-El admonished.

Impersonating Lex had taught Clark some things about bargaining. "I'll finish it if you change us back into our own bodies."

Again there was a long pause. The crystals blinked, as if the Fortress were busy. "There is no time for you to finish your education yet, Kal-El. Prisoners have escaped the Phantom Zone. You must defend Earth. I will now return you to your rightful body. Do you wish me to erase the human's memory?"

"No!" Clark yelled immediately, but Lex wore a thoughtful frown. He stepped closer to Clark.

"Tell him about Lionel," he whispered.

*

It was a week and a half after Jor-El had reversed the switch, and Lex was getting used to being himself again, in more than one way.

Night for night, more secrets of his memory became unlocked in his sleep. It was something about the switch, the AI of the Fortress had explained, that cured humans of all diseases and injuries. Apparently, memory loss was one of them.

Three days ago he had started to remember things that relieved him of any crisis of conscience he might have had regarding his Dad.

It wasn't as if Jor-El had hurt his Dad. Lionel looked happy. Martha looked happy. Clark looked… creeped out.

"Jor-El assured us that he's hundred percent cured of all anti-social impulses," Lex reminded Clark, trying not to sound as if he was enjoying this too much. They stood at the sidelines of the party, near the buffet, watching Lionel introduce Martha to the Metropolis high society.

Clark grimaced. "I still wish he'd keep his hands off my Mom."

"Enjoying yourselves?" Someone asked coolly from behind them.

Lana looked… expensive. She had her long hair done up, and was wearing a black dress. Her eyes shimmered as hard and cold as her new diamond necklace. Lex wondered who her date was, if they could afford that necklace. A few days ago, he had written her a long letter, apologizing for his behaviour in the hope that it would appeal to her love of old-fashioned gestures. Since she was talking to them, it might have had some minimal success.

"Lana," Clark stammered, sounding panicked.

She sized Lex up with a long look, ignoring Clark. "So you're still pretending to be friends? Good luck with that. I hope the Inquisitor is as easily fooled as I was."

"Oooh, this sounds interesting," someone said loudly from and Lois Lane pushed into their little circle, champagne glass in hand and leering. "What secret could Clark Kent and Lex Luthor have that would make a headline?"

Lana shot her an acid look, then quickly smoothed her face into a fake smile. "Oh, it's not really a headline," she said modestly. "More the society pages."

Lex decided he had heard enough. It was time for damage control before Lana got it into her head to start talking about Zod in public. "Lana, don't you think we should discuss this in private? I think there have been quite some misunderstandings – "

"Lex and Clark," Lana told Lois sweetly, "are dating."

Clark choked.

Lois crowed, "I knew it!"

Around them, people started clapping in response to Lionel's speech.

There was a loud snap and the lights went out.

A figure in green leather walked into the room, sporting a crossbow.

Lex stepped aside to let Clark jump into action, took another sip from his champagne and smiled at the chaos unfurling around him.


End file.
